LS polls: BSP's 'loyal' votebank fails to help party secure any seats in UP

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) vote bank remained intact in Allahabad and Phulpur despite the Modi wave, however, it failed to help them secure any seats.

Counting details indicate that the party secured 16.2 lakh and 16.3 lakh votes in Allahabad and Phulpur parliamentary seats respectively this time.

In 2009 parliamentary elections it had secured 17.4 lakh and 16.7 lakh votes respectively and in 2004 parliamentary polls, BSP had secured 1.11 lakh votes (Allahabad), 2.01 lakh (Phulpur).

All in all, BSP secured nearly 20% votes in UP— third largest after BJP (42.3 %) and Samajwadi Party (22.2 %). It's vote share stood at 4.1% or 2.3 crore. It's candidates ended up at second position on at least 34 seats in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections.

Even as the party's vote share has gone down from over 6% to 4.1 % at the national level, it still remains the third largest party in terms of vote share after BJP and Congress.

It also saw an increase in its vote share in Pratapgarh, Bhadohi and Kaushambi parliamentary seats as the party secured 2.07 lakh, 2.45 lakh and 2.01 lakh votes respectively in comparison to 1.39 lakh, 1.95 lakh and 1.90 lakh in 2009 parliamentary polls.

BSP supremo Mayawati had on Saturday claimed that BSP secured 1.51 crore votes in 2009 which increased to 1.60 crores in 2014.